Jordan Harrison has won the second Classic Formula Ford race of the weekend in dramatic style, thwarting a three-sided attack from Tom McArthur, Richard Tarling and Ben Tinkler.
Harrison’s Lola T540 has been the fastest car in the Classic pack all weekend and it was something of a surprise when McArthur’s Class B Merlyn nosed alongside Harrison at the start. The two of them were side by side into Riches and furiously challenging each other for the opening two laps.
Eventually, they tripped each other up and Tarling took a chance in his Royale RP26, towing Ben Tinkler’s Van Diemen RF80 with him. Harrison bided his time, running in the leading back but as low as fifth. It was a plan that paid off; once the time and place were right, he surged past Tarling and Tinkler and quickly pulled out a significant gap.
McArthur was then caught in a slipstreaming contest with Joe Ahrens’s Van Diemen RF80, Rick Morris’s Royale and the distincitive Lola of Jake Shortland. Shortland pulled off near the start-finish line with evident mechanical problems, reducing their group to three. The number decreased but the intensity did not, with Ahrens making increasing incursions into the territory of Morris and McArthur. He eventually prevailed, finishing fourth. Morris was fifth, ahead of McArthur, who received a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits. This did not affect his final finshing position.
Philip Senior was a lonely seventh in a red Royale RP24. Some way behind him, Oliver Chapman’s Lola T200 and James Rigby’s “Jesus Saves” Royale RP26 were engaged in a race-long scuffle. Rigby prevailed, but only by a tenth of a second. Alan Fincham (Van Diemen RF80) rounded out the top ten.
The lower of the field had its own rivalries present. Stuart Kestenbaum, driving a Van Diemen RF81, was 11th, and led home a second slipstreaming pack of Ben Hadfield’s 1978 Van Diemen, Mark Harrison’s green RP24 and Richard Yeomans in his Crossle 25F.
Full results at TSL Timing